Shofar FTP Archive File: orgs/german/einsatzgruppen/blobel.01

Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Holocaust Almanac - Paul Blobel & Babi Yar
Organization: The Nizkor Project, Vancouver Island, CANADA
Keywords: Blobel,Babi Yar,Kiev,Sonderkommando
Archive/File: places/poland/einsatzgruppen blobel.01
Last-modified: 1996/02/05
"The commander of Sonderkommando 4a, which had reached Kiev just behind the
army, was Paul Blobel. Even among a crowd of mass murderers, Blobel
distinguished himself through his crudity and bloodthirstiness. Early in the
Russian campaign he had suffered from dysentery, which he attempted to treat
with liquor. In spite of his cure, Blobel was able to carry out his duties;
and his unit left a trail of blood along its route to Kiev. Perhaps his most
barbaric action before Kiev was his execution of Jewish children from an
orphanage in Bjala Zerkow in late August. Nor was Blobel the only guilty
party there; the army became involved as well. After Colonel Groscurth tried
to block the action in Bjala Zerkow, General von Reichenau, commander of the
German Sixth Army, allowed the completion of the executions. <19> If
Reichenau had no objections to the killing of Jewish children, he would not
blanch at broad actions to deal with the percieved Jewish threat to German
security. So Blobel knew he had a free hand in Kiev.
After a meeting with Einsatzgruppe A Commander Rasch, Blobel recognized what
had to be done. First he had explosives placed under the nearly
nine-hundred-year-old Dormtion Cathedral at the Perchersk Monastery and blew
up a good portion of that building. On September 28 he had the Ukrainian
auxiliary police post notices on the walls of buildings ordering all Jews to
appear at 8:00 a.m. at a designated location on Dekhyarevskaya Street. He
gave out word orally that the entire Jewish population was to be resettled.
Actually there was to be a mass execution of a large number of Jews, as
Blobel informed a few police drivers who had just arrived in Kiev and were
waiting for their vehicles to be repaired. These Jews he described as
asocial, without worth, and intolerable for Germany. In addition, there
would be executions of patients in mental asylums and other `useless
eaters.' Because of the lack of manpower, Blobel said, the drivers would
have to participate in the action too.<20>
More than thrity thousand Jews showed up on the morning of September 29 in
spite of cold weather. A German minister stayed behind with the kitchen
staff to make tea for the troops of the commando unit and the units of
Police Regiment South, which had been called in to help. German forces
blocked off the streets as Jews were led in long lines in the direction of a
ravine in the northwest part of Kiev, which was called Babi Yar. As they
walked, the Jews chanted religious songs. One German policeman present
thought that they knew what was in store for them.<21>
Blobel had his driver bring him to the top of the ravine, where he stood and
watched as the Jews were marched in below, by this time clad only in
underwear. They were forced to lie face down, and the executioners, also at
the base of the ravine, equipped with Schmeisser automatic rifles, tried to
shoot them in the back of the head, per instructions. Because of the mass of
victims, some were shot several times over, others only wounded. Then the
next batch came in and lay down on top of the first. According to one of the
executioners, Blobel yelled frequently to his men below, complaining that
the killings were not going fast enough. The killers worked in shifts, and
they were kept supplied with ammunition and rum. At the end of the day lime
chloride was spread on top of the layers of bodies. <22> After two days'
work by Blobel's men and their helpers, Blobel proudly reported executing
33, 771 Jews in an operation that had goine quite smoothly.<23>"
<19> Interrogations of Julius Bauer, 2 Aug. 1965, and Rudi Paltzo, 27-28
July 1965, Callsen Trial, Ludwigsburg 207 AR-Z419/62, 85-87, photo-
copies in my possession.
<20> Interrogation of Heinrich August Bernhard Huhn, 16 March 1966, Trial
of Kuno Callsen et al, Ludwigsburg 207 AR-Z419/62, photocopies in my
possession. EM #106, 7 Oct 1941, NA RG 242, T-175/R234/2722806.
Interrogation of Viktor Trill, 25 June 1960, Trial of Kuno Callsen,
Ludwigsburg 207 AR-Z419/62, 12-13, photocopies in my possession. Based
on the course of events Trill described, Blobel's remarks to the
drivers occured on the evening of 29 Sept, after the first day's
executions.
<21> Interrogation of Huhn, 16 March 1966.
<22> This description is based primarily on the highly detailed testimony
in the interrogation of Viktor Trill, 25 June 1960. Other participants
provide support for some particulars - see, for example, the
interrogation of Huhn, 16 March 1966; interrogation of Erich von
Heidborn, 13 Jan. 1966, Callsen Trial, Ludwigsburg 206 AR-Z419/62,
687-88.
<23> EM #106, 7 Oct. 1941, NA RG 242, T-175/R 234/2722806
Work Cited:
Breitman, Richard. The Architect of Genocide: Himmler and the Final
Solution. New York: Alfred E. Knopf, 1991
==
See also: Browning, Christopher. Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion
101 and the Final Solution in Poland. New York: HarperCollins
[1992], 18, for general comments about Police Battalion 45 and
the massacre at Babi Yar, which references:
Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen, Ludwigsburg, II
204 AR-Z 1251-65 (Landgericht Regensburg, judgment Ks 6/70):
9-35; and 204 AR-Z 1251/65, 2:230-77 (report of Bavarian State
Criminal Office, Munich, September 10, 1968.
See also p. 135 and p. 160. These are all brief mentions of
Babi Yar, without details, as the book is focused more on the
police battalions themselves and the men in them than in the
events in which they participated.

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